Brand Platform
Restaurant Menu Design: The Brand Platform
The Brand Platform – Before you allow “marketing” to spend any money on ads, designs, photo shoots, and the like, make sure they have an approved Brand Platform in place. Really, don’t spend anything on marketing/design until it’s in place. It would be like starting to film a Hollywood movie before there is script in place. What’s a Brand Platform? A Brand Platform is the summation of the foundational aspects, rules, mannerisms, guidelines, definitive characteristics of how your company is to be portrayed; how it walks, dresses, talks, acts and behaves. It includes elements like logo usage guidelines, copy style guides, colors and fonts, Brand Personality descriptions, Brand Positioning strategy, Brand Promise, and Brand Story. Think of it like this – your “brand” is your own little country and your Brand Platform is your country’s constitution. A constitution lays out the do’s and the don’ts. There are laws (your brand platform), there is an arm in charge of enforcement of those laws (your marketing team), and there is an arm in charge of judging when a law has been broken or not (your executive team). You can make the laws exactly how you want them – it’s your country after all. However, if you are emperor of a country without laws, you can expect chaos. Likewise, if you allow the team to start designing menus without a Brand Platform in place you can expect a degree of chaos. Having laws and rules for your brand doesn’t limit creativity any more than having a canvas restricts an artist. In fact, it helps focus the efforts.
Restaurant Consultant Aaron Allen
